The beauty of Ancient Greek and Roman art

April 14th, 2012

This is a Roman copy 40-60 AD of a lost Greek original of 350-325 BC, said to be from near Naples.

'This heavily draped statue of the wine god Dionysus is one of a number of Roman copies and variants of a lost Greek original. A similar statue in the Vatican Museum was inscribed at a later period with the name 'Sardanapalus', a mythical Assyrian king notorious for his decadent behaviour. There is however, no connection between Sardanapalus and this statue type of Dionysus. While most late Classical statues of Dionysus show him as youthful and slightly effeminate,this bearded version looks back to earlier Archaic representations of the god.'( Collapse )